Wednesday, March 12, 2014

What Talent Shortage? The Great American Brain Waste of Our Captive Labor Market

No talent shortage and no brain drain, only brain waste at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: War for talent.

Subject Article: "Women’s salaries dragged down by domestic demands."

Other Links: 1. "Purdue research: Lots of 'brain waste' among highly educated immigrants."

Postscript: Linking brain waste to my recent preoccupation with higher education demographics, Oregon State University making lemonade out of lemons:

Into Oregon State has a 12-person student care team that offers workshops and personal counseling on cultural issues that go far beyond the academic: dating etiquette, notions of personal space and privacy, driving and drinking laws, attitudes toward mental health, body language, and standards of interaction with peers, faculty members or even, if needed, the police.

The most prestigious American schools have no shortage of foreign applicants and have their pick of the best. But most colleges and universities are relatively unknown worldwide and lack the resources to do overseas recruiting. And while the supply of students abroad who want an American education is immense, the number who are actually prepared for it is much more limited.

A number of for-profit companies have stepped into that breach, offering recruitment services or college preparatory boot camps, but a handful offer something more ambitious, working with American colleges to create bridge programs for foreigners, a more common practice in Britain and Australia. Six years ago, there were no programs of that kind in the United States, but now at least 15 American universities have them, working with companies like Into and Study Group, both based in Britain; Navitas, an Australian company; and Kaplan Inc., with more scheduled to come on line.

Emphasis added. Essentially, there is a talent shortage of foreign born college students. Instead of blubbering to government about the lack of ready-to-work as corporations do, universities are assuming the risk of "training" in order to tap a larger available demographic. Stop whining about the shortage of talent and go about fix the problem yourself.

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